Romantic comedies

I enjoy watching romantic comedies. I really do. Who wouldn't? They're funny, feel-good, lighthearted and often tell a good story.

I like them the way I like science fiction, superhero, horror and slasher movies. Knowing that the things they show are far from real makes these genres more enjoyable. They fulfill one of the prime purpose of movies - to paint as glorious a fantasy as possible and let you revel in it. And from a distance too, if the fantasy is gruesome and dangerous.

Where romantic comedies differ is in the blurring of that line of fantasy and reality. The characters in these movies are ordinary people like you and me (although far more attractive....the creators of these dreams want you to aspire to being like them obviously). They have fairly normal lives, with events and situations and flaws that many of us can identify with. The characters laugh and weep and are vulnerable just like us. Sometimes they show our emotions better than we do. This makes the movie and the people in it very relatable. It is far too easy to see yourself as the office guy falling for the good looking girl or seeing someone cute at a wedding and pursuing them. These things happen everyday all around the world.

And this is where the problem starts. These characters are sometimes too close to real life. This leaves you with a strange combination where the characters are very life-like but the plot is still a fantasy. Much as I marvel at the capacities of the human brain,  I'm not sure it is rational enough to keep all of this sorted and well-delineated all the time.

How can we be sure that what we see and identify with and aspire to for a long time during our formative years (how many rom coms have you seen from the age of 14 till today?) hasn't impacted our ability to think and take decisions in a certain manner? Who is to say watching many movies like these doesn't introduce a systemic bias in the way we perceive relationships and other people? That they don't affect our expectations and assumptions about people?

In many of the romantic movies, an external force - God, Nature, Destiny, Fate, Serendipity - essentially something out of your control and (surprisingly) with your well-being and happiness at heart intervenes at opportune moments to bring people together. If the movie is particularly well crafted, we often miss this element and it is weaved very subtly into the narrative. But it's there always. This element, which is out of your control, forms the core of the 'fantasy' part of a rom-com. And by definition, it is extremely unlikely to happen to you in real life.

But many people miss that part, knowingly or unknowingly, because the canvas on which writers and directors paint a beautiful picture of your life is so very broad and oh-so-charming. In between all the adorable 'awww's and the poignant tender moments designed to open you up to beautiful possibilities in your life, it is easy to miss the element of fantasy that is holding up the entire picture.

As one trademark pithy Calvin and Hobbes truism goes:

Why isn’t my life like a situation comedy? Why don’t I have a bunch of friends with nothing better to do but drop by and instigate wacky adventures? Why aren’t my conversations peppered with spontaneous witticisms? Why don’t my friends demonstrate heartfelt concern for my well-being when I have problems?… I gotta get my life some writers.

The more effectively this element is hidden and blended into the movie, the better the final illusion. Alternately, a movie like serendipity might take a contrary approach and flaunt its supernatural element as its USP. It then becomes free to make its characters even more vulnerable and helpless, while retaining their charm by showing their struggles against their fate.

When someone starts relating  too much to movies and novels like these, while missing the fantasy part, I suspect there develops an undetected sense of entitlement, even in an otherwise self-reliant person. When things don't happen the way they do in the stories, that person might start asking questions like 'why doesn't something like this happen to me?' But underlying this question is the hidden assumption that something like this is supposed to happen to you. As if it is the norm or at least that it happens with a majority of people. Wanting things to happen to you, hoping for signs to guide you the 'right' way and other such wishes where the  locus of control is with some outer unknown power, are often seen in such cases.

Very few, if any, of these stories show the hard work that goes into making a successful relationship. They focus on the chemistry between couples, which can (if present in real life) be merely the first thing that brings people together. Arguably, it is neither the writer/director's job nor their intention to show how to build successful relationships. They want to entertain and sell you a story and they do so using whatever they can - it is fair to show an arbitrary fate bringing people together (supposedly meant to be with each other) in mysterious ways. But the way these stories are sold with the 'coming together' as the final step in happiness and bliss is deceptive at best, damaging at worst. And it isn't the seller's fault that you are deceived or damaged by this.

We all want to believe. Especially when a path to reach our soul-mate is shown to us in charming colors and sounds. Who doesn't want lovely dreams?

But as the cliché goes, the best way to realize a dream is to wake up.